


Precision

by foxietales



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Philinda - Freeform, blood warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:21:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxietales/pseuds/foxietales
Summary: Coulson almost never leaves a phone call unanswered, and May certainly never thought he’d do so thanks to her. Written for a prompt on tumblr, rated T for blood/injury.





	Precision

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand here I go with a second attempt on this ship! I gotta admit I am a little bit out of inspiration recently so I just started taking prompts for this and a couple of other ships on tumblr to try and get my inspo back. This was actually pretty fun to write, though! Even though it's not set during any specific point, it's mostly towards the middle of season one before everything goes to hell? Not sure. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm still feeling my way around with this ship, so I'm not sure the result is all too great. Nonetheless, enjoy!

  
Through the years they'd spend together in ops, through everything they'd been through when they officially became SHIELD agents, Melinda May had managed to build a very specific image of what Philip Coulson was like. And while he still kept a lot of secrets -from her, from everyone, it didn't matter-, she'd been able to notice how... precise he'd always been. Precision, she supposed, was his defining trait, the first word that would come to mind when she looked at him.

  
One of the most prevalent examples of that trait would be his habit to never leave a phone call unanswered. Through all these years, the times he'd neglected to pick up his phone while it was ringing could be counted onto the fingers of one hand. Hell, she couldn't even remember the occasions during which he'd neglected to respond.

  
However, she was almost one hundred percent sure all of these times it had been accidental, or it had been during a very pressing situation. As in, a life-or-death one.

  
She'd never even imagined _she_ would come to be the cause of one of these slip-ups.

* * *

 

  
"Stay with me."

  
Coulson sucked in an all-too-shallow breath, one that did nothing to actually fill his lungs with oxygen. It was more of an instinctive reaction, one that his body told him to perform yet his mind could not comprehend why. He didn't need to. _He_ was alright. _He_ was perfectly capable of breathing without wheezing.

  
As opposed to May, who had ended up choking into her own damn blood every time she'd tried to take in a breath of much-needed air.

  
"Stay with me, you hear me? You _need_ to stay with me, May!"

  
She squeezed his hand in response to his frantic words, but she was unable to say anything -instead she only coughed once, twice, blood rushing out of her mouth each time. The sight of it brought yet another quiet flurry of colorful words out of Coulson's mouth, and he pressed his hand over her side, practically throwing all of his weight against her in a desperate attempt to stop the blood that came out of the gunshot wound.

  
It didn't work -the dark red liquid continued to come out, thick and warm and so damn _much_.

If he didn't find a way to stop it until the extraction team reached them, she'd die.

  
"Stay awake." Coulson repeated, his voice shaking. Damn her, damn her, damn her for taking the hit -the hit that had meant to take him out. Their position should be reversed. He should be the one bleeding out on the cold ground, he should be the one dying. Not her. This was never meant to happen to her.

  
"I..." His eyes snap back to hers as soon as he hears her hoarse voice.

  
"Melinda, _don't_."

  
"I'd promised I'd... protect you."

  
Her words broke him more than he'd ever thought they would, more than the sight of her blood and the sound of her laboured breathing. He dragged her into his arms as they crouched behind a pile of debris for cover, not paying any attention to the blood that seeped through his clothes as he held her close. And as he held her, begging her not to give up on him, not yet, not when there were so many things that he wanted to tell her, he prayed. Prayed that by some impossible miracle, the extraction team would arrive soon enough to save her.

* * *

  
The medbay of the bus seemed surprisingly empty without Simmons and Fitz running around in circles, checking on the equipment or administrating medicines or performing tests or asking ' _bloody hell, what even_ happened _out there?!_ ' every time they passed by Coulson, who was seated on a chair right by May's bedside.

  
Well, the answer to that was quite simple, he supposed; everything had gone right to _bloody hell_ , as Fitz would have so intellectually put it. A mission gone wrong, two agents caught in the crossfire, a bullet that Coulson hadn't even managed to discern the origin of, and there they were, May bleeding on his arms and him begging whatever higher force would listen that she'd stay strong until they were back into the bus.

  
To her credit, she'd actually held onto consciousness up until the extraction team had arrived. Somewhere after that she'd eventually passed out, leaving Coulson to absolutely lose his mind until Simmons had assured him that yes, she would make it, that no, she wasn't dying, but that it would be a while until she'd be back into action.

  
He couldn't have cared less about that last part. In fact, he'd practically stopped listening to Simmons as soon as she'd assured him that May wasn't dying. 

  
That had been a couple of hours ago, during which Coulson had loyally sat on that plastic chair, not moving a single inch until May had _finally_ opened her eyes and looked at him.

  
All at once, he'd felt the overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms, to thank her for not leaving him, to shout at her for putting herself in such danger. But the only thing that had come out of his mouth was a small sigh as he'd squeezed her hand and smiled at her numbly. He supposed that her smiling right back, even if it was only for a couple of seconds, was a good thing.

  
They hadn't talked much after that. He'd asked her how she was feeling, and she'd replied with an annoyed ' _like death_ ', after which both of them laughed weakly -though Coulson wasn't entirely sure about whether they should be laughing about it. Simmons had been pretty clear when she'd stated that had they been a few minutes late, she could have actually died.

  
He didn't have the heart to scold her about that -or about her so foolishly putting her life in danger- though. And since she wasn't in the best of conditions to talk a lot either, they'd settled for just sitting in silence.

  
The better part of an hour must have passed, when the silence was interrupted by Coulson's phone buzzing inside the pocket of his bloodied suit. At the sound, May's eyes immediately snapped open, and she cast a curious look towards Coulson.

  
"Aren't you going to pick it up...?"

  
He could hear the unspoken sequence to her phrase; 'you always do'. Hesitantly, he let go of her hand just to pull the phone out of his pocket. He risked a quick glance at the flashing screen -Fury.

  
"It's the Director." He said out loud. "I suppose he'd been expecting a report of the mission, which has been fairly delayed already..." Truly, Fury would be, well, _furious_ if they kept him waiting any longer...  
Slowly, Coulson stuffed the phone back onto his pocked -but not before turning off the sound. With the corner of his eye, he caught May raising an eyebrow.

  
"What's that supposed to mean?"

   
He looked up at her again, a grin breaking across his face as he saw the small smile playing across her mouth. He put his hand over hers again, resting on the mattress.

  
"It means," he smiled a little wider, "that the report can possibly wait just a little longer."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've broken a record with not killing either Phil or Melinda yet -I usually put the characters of my favorite ships through much worse, so there might be one of these situations coming in the future :3  
> For now they're both alive and happy (and pissing Fury off) though, so there's that! I hope you liked it, and thanks for reading!~


End file.
